Driving south on the interstate for the third day
The year advances as we arrive in a warmer place
Renting again in southwest Florida for the third year
We are snow birds returning to our wintering grounds.
Daydreaming on cruise control as the miles go by
Thinking about retracing the same route on the same day
My personal travel aligned with the movement of the earth
Marking the start of a new year.
The sum of all my distance vectors is zero
From when I last moved along this road to now
Including the distance vectors traveled by the earth itself
Moving through its annual ellipse.
I like the notion of individual and global motion in
parallel
Though my perambulation does not trace an ellipse
And we do not return to the same place
When time flows past ever increasing the distance.
Last night I told you the definition of a constant distance
from two points
How you can trace an ellipse with a loop of string going
around
The two points and a pencil pulling the string taut
Or draw a circle that way if the two points are
superimposed.
And today I am wondering about what happens with three
points
Drawing a curve using a loose loop of string around them
Trying to visualize how the constant length of string
Determines the curve formed by the pencil.
The string pulls tight across two sides of the triangle
And the string on the third side traces a section of an
ellipse
So what results would be three elliptical sections
And now I see the pattern for however many points.
I enjoy thinking about mathematical abstractions
But there’s something that puzzles me about the earth’s
orbit
If the sun is one focus of the elliptical path
Where is the other one never marked on any diagram?
